


Differences

by orphan_account



Series: Snatches of Hayffie [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Hayffie, One Shot, Post-Mockingjay, Post-Series, Reunions, The Capitol, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, fluffy fluff, hayffie hayffie everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-20 07:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1502753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>/ Post-Mockingjay, before Epilogue. \<br/>Haymitch, whilst in the Capitol, stops by an old accquaintence's house. They're both different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Differences

**Author's Note:**

> Shamless, pointless, one-shot, Hayffie fluff. Self explanatory, really. I'm in a Hayffie-y fluffy mood.

Haymitch hovers around on the gleaming doorstep, focusing on it so he doesn't have to focus on anything else. White, polished. Like why he's here. Neat, tidy. Here in the home of hell. Pretty, plain. Or here on Effie Trinket's white, polished, neat, tidy, pretty, plain doorstep. Either, really.  
Of course, he's halfway to being halfway drunk; nowhere near as drunk as he means to be before the day is through. Though the sky is straining, clear and cobalt, soon enough the afternoon sunshine will subside and the autumn will really remember it's meant to be here, when the stars do.  
Stars and sunshine. He's turned into a poetic arsehole.  
Haymitch shifts uncomfortably in the sunken doorway. His head is fogged slightly from the liquor, but not so much that it veils reality, as he likes it. Just a bit of a pleasant haze is all. He nearly laughs when he remembers Katniss berating him with snappy glares and cropped words, about coming away from the liquor.  
The sweetheart of slugs herself intervened when he, again, relapsed into old habits. Before then she'd always sent the goody-goody baker-painter.  
He loves them, of course he does, there's no other choice when they've been thrust together through so much - but he does want to smash his fucking door down and impale the bitch every time she mentions 'alcohol abuse addiction'. Ha.  
Maybe he is a tad more drunk than he feels. Maybe he has to be.  
He must admit, when he thought of Princess Fusspot, he hadn't exactly thought this would be her home of choice. He knows his way around the Capitol better than he'd like - a fact that makes him want to wash his face with liquor in the morning, not water. It's a glorified fighting pit with a pretty, sparkling outside, build on dreams and dust, inhabited by flattery and fools. He always thought Effie would boast an extravagant apartment with all the latest this and that. Maybe she used to. When people still slaughtered for entertainment. Or slaughtered in a televised way, at least. War changes everyone. This house is compact and functional rather than curling and flouncy, an irregular oblong of white stone, the one fashionable feature being a fringe of gilded golden tassels lining the sloped roof.  
He images it's considered fashionable. It's to fucking awful not to be.  
Impatient, Haymitch hammers on the flawless door once more. He doesn't yell this time. Maybe she's not in. Maybe that's for the better. Maybe he should get back to the apartment supplied; he's only here for Beetee's something-or-fuck, and more of the good liquor. This is a waste of time and nobody cares.  
He turns to go.  
The click in the lock forces him to stop lugging his leaden limbs across the blue-paved street. Music to his ears. The nails-on-blackboard sort of music perhaps.  
"So sorry, I was in the shower, silly me! I don't usually expect unannouced visitors, I -"  
Haymitch turns around at that familiar, infuriating Capitol accent. And he almost thinks he's got the wrong adress after all. Because the woman standing, default upbeat fixed smile incinerated to what he imagines as pleasant shock, is different.  
And not just in the eyes, like any old possibly-traumatized war victim. (That's boring. He's had enough of any old possibly traumatized war victims. They're everywhere and he supposes he's meant to be one of them, though there's no 'possibly' in his) goddamned title.  
Effie's different.  
She's younger than he first anticipated; and more mature looking, too, without the excessive monstrosities she used to cake her face in. She doesn't look like Effie Trinket, Capitol good-girl and escort of victimized murderers anymore. She looks cleaner without the Capitol coating, scrubbed cheeks flushed a little pink.  
Her natural hair turns out to be a pretty, neutral blonde, and it's falling straight and soft across her robe-clad shoulders. She's in a pink, satiny dressing gown, fringed in amethyst.  
Oh, right. Shower. The queen of the airheads opens her mouth to speak.  
"Haymitch?" She's incredulous. "Haymitch Abernathy?"  
"Unfortunately." He replies, more grunt than word. He doesn't know why he's here.  
"Oh, Haymitch, how divine to see you in good working order again! Katniss writes so frequently, I thought you'd be out in Twelve, drinking and... All drinking entails. But you're here, and you're fine! I wasn't expecting company, so I trust you can forgive any untidyness."  
Haymitch snorts, because he can't imagine anything in the possession of Effie Trinket untidy. "It's good to see you alive." Haymitch allowed himself to voice, at least. "I suppose."  
She frowns primly, with an old-times-Effie-ish 'hmph' and then shakes his essential Haymitchness off. It's her sparkly little squeak of indignance that makes him correct himself, not the liquor. Shocking.  
"M'sorry. You're getting along alright, safe to assume."  
"Oh, I get by. It's a more managable time."  
Yeah, he'd say. Managable. A still-awed part of him wonders whether the managable could be applied to her appearance. She looked a right clownish state in fashionable vomit, and yet spent half her life happily touching it up.  
"That's what they all say after wars, sweetheart. You look good. Better." The rest slips loose from his blurry head unbidden. "Abandoned outragous idocy for ordinarity, or regret? Or did you just realize it was a waste of time, and effort, when your human look is better."  
Effie shifts in the doorway. She's not perfect. She never was. But she's the perfect Effie. She' not wearing any makeup in the slightest and he's glad. She's sloughed away bouncy, beamy, banal Effie Trinket, and has left bare Effie Trinket, whoever she actually is. Haymitch wants to know.  
Maybe he's always wanted to know.  
Maybe he's a fucking idiot for not realising before now.  
Maybe she is too.  
"Thank you, Haymitch, if that was what passes for a compliment in Twelve these days. Honestly, where are your manners? Come in."  
He doesn't come in, not properly, not yet. He wants to try something, before. Because he feels like he knows the one way to shatter the stiffness between them. And he wants to try this something different for a different Haymitch and a different Effie. He owes it to them, and to who they used to be.  
He holds her tight as he tries it, but as she gradually tries it too, it eases up, and it's different. Good different. Powerful different. I-can't-believe-we-waited-this-long different.  
And somehow, he thinks he won't be needing that liquor anymore.


End file.
